An MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) apparatus is widely used in the field of medical image diagnosis. MRI is an imaging method based on a magnetic resonance phenomenon. In this imaging method, an atomic nucleus (e.g., 1H ) spin of an subject placed in astatic magnetic field is magnetically excited by an RF (Radio Frequency) signal having a Larmor frequency, and an MRI image is reconstructed from an MR (Magnetic Resonance) signal generated by the excitation.
When performing magnetic resonance imaging, a local RF coil unit is sometimes used to receive an MR signal generated from a subject.
In the magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, a multichannel MR signal acquisition system is often used in recent years. More specifically, a multichannel MR signal is often used from a coil element of the RF coil unit to an RF transceiver of the magnetic resonance imaging apparatus main body. As a consequence, the number of connection cables between the two units increases by the multichannel configuration, and wiring becomes complicated. Therefore, it is expected to eliminate this inconvenience by using wireless communication between the RF coil unit and magnetic resonance imaging apparatus main body, i.e., between the RF coil unit and RF transceiver.
When implementing a wireless RF coil unit, the clock of the wireless RF coil unit is sometimes asynchronous to the clock of the apparatus main body. To reduce the asynchrony of a signal to be converted by analog-digital conversion in accordance with the clock of the wireless RF coil unit, it is possible to strictly synchronize the clock of the wireless RF coil unit to that of the apparatus main body, but this method is not easy.